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Sage grabs my arm. “Ezra.”

“We have to go.”

“What the fuck is happening?”

“The Communion.”

“This isn’t a party.”

“No.” I say as a scream cuts through the music. This one isn’t pleasure. Someone runs from the corn and a root catches his ankle causing him to face plant into the dirt. People laugh and watch as the root drags him backward while screaming for help.

Sage moves but I grab her. “Don’t.”

“He needs help.”

“That’s not him anymore.”

“What?”

His body disappears into the corn and the screaming stops. A scarecrow rises thirty feet away with fresh blood stains on its shirt.

Sage stops breathing. “No.”

The scarecrow turns its head toward us.

“Ezra.”

“I know.”

Another rises… then another—they’re everywhere. The old Brides walk between the living.

Guests don’t run—they dance around them, kiss them, feed them—worship them without knowing why.

The Harvest has stopped pretending.

A bell rings. Once and every person stops. Hundreds. Mid-motion, mid-laugh, mid-kiss.

Silence.

Sage grabs my arm. “Why did they stop?”

I know.

Because every face turns toward her.

Bride.

“Oh fuck.”

They bow. All of them—one by one. Knees hit dirt. Hundreds of people. Scarecrows. Dead Brides. Living guests—everyone. Except us.

Sage backs into me. “No.”

The table splits down the middle and the wood cracks, plates tumble, roots burst upward and twist together… higher—thicker. They form into something… a chair—no, a throne.

“Absolutely the fuck not.” She whispers.

I grab her hand. “Run.”